I believe the Michael Myers mask is also a call back to Max’s halloween costume from Season 2.

In the end, Jason was the reason why the final gate opened: Lucas was busy with him, which meant he wasn’t there to play Kate Bush to Max when she started levitating (not to mention Jason broke the walkman). That led to Max dying, which led to the gate opening. I think the build-up to him being what ruins their plan…

Nancy had a shotgun.  When he was down she could have blown his head off. It was at that point where I realized. Oh. He’s going to survive for season five. 

I could have really done without that whole Red Dawn meets satanic panic plotline. It makes some sense narratively, as it keeps the Hawkins group on high alert even when not dealing directly with a threat from the Upside Down, but I just hate characters like that. I know we left California pretty early, but we didn’t…

I also appreciated the nod to Halloween - first by having Eddie wearing a Michael Myers mask, and then at the end, after Vecna gets shot and falls out of a window down to the ground, they show that somehow his body isn’t there. That’s gotta be a direct and intentional homage, right? 

Spoilers, I guess. I felt the only truly frightening moment was when the jock was threatening to break Erica’s arm. I thought he was going to do it, and I like Erica a lot. That felt real. Turns out the monsters were the dumbass jocks we met along the way.

Max’s story was the highlight of the season. It was much more poignant than I expected it to be. Just because it isn’t happy doesn’t make it ugly.

Well the sword was from when they sent the prisoners in the arena with weapons to battle the demigorgon.

Weights. Otherwise, she’d just float awkwardly to the top every time they lowered her into that tank. Humans are buoyant. 

Guy gets a little bit of a rush every time he tells people he doesn’t watch a popular tv show

I am usually blind to details, but the book Lucas was reading to Max was The Talisman, where the main character flips between worlds on a journey across country.

Hawkins residents believe there’s a serial killer in town, but even in the ’80s, would everyone just converge at that gun shop for a shopping spree at the same time?

Its a part of the storyline? She's been wearing it for a minute and she's literally a Jedi....

Isn’t it the weighted bathingsuit she wore so she’d sink in the sensory deprivation tank? From Season 1?

The runtimes didn’t bother me. There’s even a fade to black about halfway into “The Piggyback” that just as well could have been the end to a penultimate episode that set up the finale of the second half. So it was like three episodes instead of two. I certainly wasn’t complaining.

i think they’re being creative here. they also say she owes roughly the same amount for the pilot.

Just because the world is the problem doesn’t mean that you are not also a problem. 

Exactly. And it shows the anti-STEM nature of the writers. Nerdy teens aspire to get into MIT or Caltech, not Harvard.

The excised scene at the end where Mr. McAllister goes to Tracy’s house went a long way towards explaining her behavior. The scenes with her mom gave a peek as well, but seeing that she lives in a very modest house on a fairly bleak street with a huge water tank (IIRC) dominating the horizon explains a lot of her…

I hope the college she wants to get into isn’t Harvard.  I’m so sick of shows and movies about teens who wanna get into Harvard.  It’s so fucking overrated by this point.